“Today, the exploration of new places and new ideas seems self-evidently a good thing. For much of human history, though, priests, politicians, and philosophers cast a suspicious eye on curious folks.”
Tag: 07.13
Who Are America’s Intellectuals? Once They Were Artists, Scientists…. Now….
“We oscillate wildly between demonizing our intellectuals and deifying them; they appear to us, in turn, as nuisances, threats, and saviors. We cut their funding and then study how their brains function. We trust them with our economy, our climate, our media and our institutions, then rage against them for their failures–and then trust them all over again.”
How Mannes College Is Reinventing The Music Conservatory
“The “old” Mannes minted performers for the stage. The “new” Mannes will nurture “citizen artists” who perform in multiple genres, compose in various styles, teach in higher education, work as arts administrators and chart their own careers without the luxury (or necessity) of an agent, a manager or a publisher.”
Shakespeare Deniers Just Have To Go Away Now
“For a long time the academy was more anxious about becoming “like unto” the folly of the Shakespeare deniers, and so the various assertions of the Baconians, the Oxfordians, and their motley associates went largely unchallenged.”
How The Traveling Salesman Problem Is Reshaping Modern Life
“Every time you want to go somewhere, or you want something to get to you, the chances are someone is thinking at that very moment how to make that process more efficient. We are all of us traveling salesmen.”
Annual ARTnews List Of World’s Top Art Collectors
“Whatever their secret preoccupations, new collectors continue to emerge throughout the world and are entering the art market at the highest level.”
Fear Of The Machine – Are We Screwed? (A Historical Perspective)
“With the advent of machines that are infinitely more intelligent and powerful than most people could have imagined a century ago, has the day finally come when technology will leave millions of us permanently displaced? Judging by the popular press, the answer is yes, and there is plenty of alarming data leading some people to support that view.”
The Humanities And Computers, The Early Days
“The digital humanities–or ‘humanities computing,’ as it was then known–used machines the size of small cars, punch cards, and data recorded on magnetic tape. To many scholars, its methods, which depended on breaking down texts into data elements, seemed alien, as did the antiseptic atmosphere of the computer lab.”
Tel Aviv Library Brings Beach Reading To The Actual Beach
“The Tel Aviv Municipality inaugurated a new library on Tuesday at the Metzitzim Beach, near the city’s port … The library, which consists of a two-wheeled cart stationed on the promenade, contains 523 books in five languages: Hebrew, Arabic, English, Russian and French.”
Why Is American Media So Squeamish About Graphic Images?
“A number of studies suggest that the media have grown less likely to publish explicitly violent images in recent decades, even as fictional portrayals of violence in film and video games have intensified. The retreat from graphic photography seems partly the result of increased timidity about offending the audience.”